ya

I can____on__ do that to him,_ Summer says sharply. __r to myself. Besides, your feelings for me aren__ real. The Society did this to you. And if they did it to you, they probably scrambled my brain too. I can__ trust that any of this is real.

I think it's time you got a summer love of your own until lover boy sees he need to ditch Gina.

You should__e told me,_ she repeats. __ecause here__ a news flash: You might__e wanted to shelter me, but there__ nowhere you can hide me that__l keep me safe from what__ inside my head.

I can__ just take it.___ou can. I__ giving it to you._ She affirms, glimpsing quickly up at me and then down to the floor, moving her foot once and then back again. Still her hand is offered to me, still flinching with the ring in her palm.__hat do you want for it?___othing._ __ou must want something._ __... got what I wanted._ She smiles, such a light, smooth movement of her lips, but it dies out so quickly, like a candle light being blown in the wind. __hat__ that?___ got to see you again, to give it to you.

Every Forsaken in a mile radius can probably hear you. You__e just asking for trouble if you two don__ stop whipping out the measuring stick.___t__ his fault,_ Avery snaps, pointing at Julian.__hut up, ya wanker.__hey start in on each other again. They yell as if they both have megaphones to their mouths, standing inches apart. Each vulgar insult is more illogical than the last.

He wanted to break up with me in the cafeteria? Fat chance. I leaned toward him and touched his arm in a girlfriend sort of way. __f you planned to stage a public breakup with me, you can forget it.__musement showed in his hazel eyes. __hink you can stop me?

It was a single line amid a wall of hate. It barely made a difference.But it was a start__nd that was all that mattered.

I have to get off this elevator.I can't ride with him, Can't look at him, Can't be this close to him. Can't, Can't, can't.

I thought three minutes and twelve seconds would undo me. Now I__ trapped. I cannot survive in this elevator. Not with him, Not for much longer Another second.

If Amber kept up her act forever, it would only be a matter of time before the broken pieces of her real self were too small to ever be put back together. I didn__ know what happened to people once they were unfixable. I only hoped I never had to find out.

Why do you do it, Amber? Why do you go after people like you do? It__ not who you are.___hat__ the point,_ Amber said. ____ not allowed to be who I really am.

At what point do they believe what's been branded on their skin instead of just knowing who they are on the inside.

The lights disappear, The elevator shudders, Stalls, Quits. All in the same nanosecond. All that exists is darkness so thick I can't think, And Travis so close I can't breathe.

I__e brought you some things from home,_ I said, gesturing at the bag on the floor. __ome clothes and books _ things like that.___ooks _ great! That__l make things easier. You know I can__ read worth a damn right now!___here__ also some music. Schubert__ fifth, Mendelssohn__ third, Mozart__ Clarinet Concerto, Mahler__ fourth____ would have preferred his sixth.___ou__e not well enough for his sixth'.

Whenever someone says some- thing about us, it gets written inside us, permanently. The good words, the ugly words, it__ all right here._ I placed a palm against my chest. __ure, you can scribble out the words or try to paint over them, but beneath the layers of paint and ink, they__e still there, branded to our cores like initials carved in a tree.

Don__ you think it__ sad some people are only remembered by the graffiti about them on the bathroom stalls?

Calling a book "Young Adult" is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. People used to say they like to read books about romance, true crime, comedy, horror or science fiction. But these days people simply say they like to read "Young Adult" books. As if that were a topic. But that's the thing: Young Adult is not a topic, it's a level of censorship. Saying "I like Young Adult books" is just another way of saying "I like books that have been dumbed down for children. I like books with no big words and no difficult abstract concepts. Nothing that will strain my brain." People like to brag that they used to start reading at an early age, as if that were a badge of honor, a sign of intelligence. Nobody brags about when they started to watch TV. But books are being dumbed down so much these days, it's really not a sign of great intelligence when you're a grown up and you struggle your way through Green Eggs and Ham.

The bent but unbroken ones.